Okay, you've
decided to begin marketing on the Internet and you're ready to jump right in
and create a web page ... right? Wrong!
STEP 1: Planning For
Success
There are a few more steps to go through
if you want to be successful in your web
adventure.
Before you begin your journey onto the Information
Superhighway with a web page, there are several questions you must answer.
These questions will be critical to the success or failure of your Internet
marketing efforts.
Click Here for our Planning Checklist
What's Your Purpose?
 The
first thing you need to do is answer the question, "What
is the purpose of your web site?" or, "Why are you doing this anyway?"
Don't overlook this critical step! How you answer this and the other questions
will help guide you through the rest of the process. Not answering these
questions adequately will inevitably lead to a weakened web presence at a
higher cost. Hardly the definition of "success."
"If you want to reach a goal, you
must 'see the reaching' in your own mind before you actually arrive at your
goal." -- Zig Ziglar
A common
characteristic of most successful businesses is that they have
a vision for their business. They know what they
are working towards, and they are building a business that matches their
vision.
How do you
create a vision for your online business? First you need to ask yourself what
you really want to create with your business. Picture in your mind the ideal
business that you want to own. Don't get distracted by what is or is not
possible and do not evaluate whether it will work. Just consider the
possibilities and how aiming for what you want will be unique to you.
Hosting Your Web Site
Now that you've defined why you're doing a
web page and what you're going to do with it, you can begin selecting where
your site will be stored.
Your web page will need to
be hosted on a server that is connected to the Internet. You may already have
space allocated to you through your ISP as part of your dial-up service. Or,
perhaps you've seen all kinds of web sites that offer FREE web pages. Those
FREE offers sound good, but quite honestly if you're doing anything beyond a
personal web page with family photos or pics of last years vacation, I'd
strongly suggest you avoid those FREEbies.
Generally, web hosts come
in three varieties:
- FREE Sites
Earlier I
suggested you should not use the
free
webhosting sites to host your business web page. There is however a useful
function for the free sites as it relates to your business web page. You can
create multiple portals or gateways to your main site from the many free sites
available on the web. Now, you can't be too blantant about it as many of them
forbid you from creating simply a portal page. But, if you put some valuable
content on the free site targeted for your customers, there is no reason you
can't point them to your main business site as well.
- Budget Hosts
While these
hosts do not always offer all the bells-and-whistles you may want in a
professional site, many of them still are useful for the entry level web site.
Be careful in choosing your host - if their servers go down for long periods of
time, load your pages very slowly, or don't provide a way for you to contact
them, it can do more damage to your business than good.
- Full Service Hosting
If
you're needing a full compliment of services and 24-hour technical support,
perhaps you should look at one of these hosting services.
ReadyHosting
America
Online
In addition to nationwide access with local
phone number, you have multiple mail boxes, personal homepage space, and access
to AOL's wide range of special interest groups.
AIT, Inc.
HostCompare.com
Compare web hosting
providers through a variety of highly respected industry resources
Interland - Not recommended
Dedicated Hosting / HostPro - Not
recommended
Don't overlook Data
Synthesis Web Hosting services. While we are not hosting on-site, we
outsource our hosting services to various providers depending on your
particular needs. We will work with you and find the best hosting service
customized for your individual needs. We also act as an intermediary for you in
providing customer service and support.
We have worked with
numerous different hosts in the past and quite honestly have found oftentimes
the so-called Full Service hosts do not always provide the best service, unless
you have a high-priced service plan in effect with them. The smaller budget
hosts are sometimes more willing to provide better service to compete with the
larger hosts and many of them are offering more services to acquire a larger
customer base..
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Plan for
Success
Implement
Promote, Promote, Promote